Posted
by
timothyon Monday August 11, 2014 @08:06AM
from the so-very-simple dept.

jjoelc (1589361) writes One year after their last release "Luna", Elementary OS (a Linux distribution with a very heavy emphasis on design and usability which draws a lot of comparisons to Mac OS X) Has released the public beta of their latest version "Freya."
Using core components from Ubuntu 14.04, "Freya" sports many improvements including the usual newer kernel, better hardware support and newer libraries.Other updates include a GSignon-based online accounts system, improved searches, Grub-free uEFI booting, GTK+ 3.12, an updated theme, and much more.
This being a beta, the usual warnings apply, but I would also point out that the Elementary OS Team also has over $5,000 worth of bugs still available on Bountysource which can be a great way to contribute to the project and make a little dough while you are at it.

Unless there is some killer feature, or the distribution is tailored well to a specific niche, I am quite bored with the "yet another Linux distro" articles

As someone who uses Ubuntu as their primary desktop OS both at home and at work, I have to say that usability is the biggest feature holding back Linux desktop. It is the reason all those "year of the linux desktop" stories are BS. Hence it is the killer feature for the Linux Desktop.

Linux Desktop feels like someone built a great desktop but never went back and reviewed their work. There are so many little things daily that cause the OS to be hard to use for regular people. And yes, that includes Ubuntu.

I wish there was a commercial Linux desktop option that offered create support, spent some time cleaning up and smoothing out the rough edges on the Linux Desktop, and had just one top tier hardware partner. I would gladly pay a few hundred dollars a year for this.

* No GUI for a lot of small-thing configuration activities;* Invariably having to drop to terminal to do this and that;* When I double-click on an "executable" I want it to execute, not open it in whatever equivalent of Notepad there is;* I want my updates to install as seamlessly as possible, e.g. download and install updates in the background then let me know I need to restart (if that's the case), much like Android does;* App store for my favorite flavor, where I could sort by features, not by category;* While you're at it, give the applications proper names. A Text editor named "Kate"? A streaming application called "XBMC"? A music placer called "Clementine", "Banshee" or "Amarok"? Please...* Make it absurdly easy to mount an ISO or browse a network/network share.* Enable "Win" key functionality and try to replicate as many "Win"+key commands to make former Windows-based power users feel at home (Win+R, Win+Arrows).* Make it easy to search for files and folders. Many times I copied a file or downloaded a file and I had no idea where it was, searching for it yielded no results but manually browsing around eventually found it. Y U NO SEARCH???

The above are off the top of my head and represent just a little part of my overall "user-inducing frustration" that pretty much every Desktop Linux flavor thrown at me so far.

I don't know how to best emphasize on this: as a desktop user, I simply loathe having to open terminal and drop to root 50 times a day, when whatever I have to do should involve a right-click and picking a menu entry or a couple checkmarks selected in a configuration GUI window. People eventually start doing everything as root and then they are laughed at for "not being secure". Well, doh. It's the OS pushing that behavior, not the user choosing it deliberately.

* No GUI for a lot of small-thing configuration activities;* Invariably having to drop to terminal to do this and that;

I'm a complete n00b with Linux Mint 16 installed, and I hardly ever have to do this for my regular use. Everything worked out of the box. I only use the command line for a particular video editing feature, because I am too cheap to buy a better program, and because someone wrote a simple program that does exactly what I need.

* When I double-click on an "executable" I want it to execute, not open it in whatever equivalent of Notepad there is;

I agree with this one.

* I want my updates to install as seamlessly as possible, e.g. download and install updates in the background then let me know I need to restart (if that's the case), much like Android does;

Actually, no, that is really annoying, because you end up with a computer that does stuff behind your back, and is using bandwidth/processor power when I need it. I will choose when my computer can have those resources. For me, the way Ubuntu / Linux Mint does its updates is by far superior to any other method I have seen.

* App store for my favorite flavor, where I could sort by features, not by category;

The app stores are relatively new to Linux, and this may be built in the future. I generally end up googling for the program that I want, then selecting it from the app store for installation anyway. But it is probably true that Linux' app stores are not as fancy as the commercial ones. Also, the apps are almost all free, which may have something to do with it.

* While you're at it, give the applications proper names. A Text editor named "Kate"? A streaming application called "XBMC"? A music placer called "Clementine", "Banshee" or "Amarok"? Please...

As opposed to your document viewer called "Acrobat Reader", your browser called "Firefox", and your video player called "VLC"? Please...

* Make it absurdly easy to mount an ISO or browse a network/network share.

(sorry, not sure what this is about)

* Enable "Win" key functionality and try to replicate as many "Win"+key commands to make former Windows-based power users feel at home (Win+R, Win+Arrows).

If you're a hardcore Windows user, I recommend Windows for you. However, you are not the average windows user. The large majority know zero such combinations. But I believe Ubuntu with Unity uses a lot of win-key combinations for useful stuff. Personally, I only use it to open the "start" menu in my Linux Mint. I can do without all the fancy stuff.

* Make it easy to search for files and folders. Many times I copied a file or downloaded a file and I had no idea where it was, searching for it yielded no results but manually browsing around eventually found it. Y U NO SEARCH???

I also agree with this one. There are tools, but they are not user friendly enough, and I also struggle sometimes. The method most often recommended is something called grep, I think, and that is always command line which just sucks because I always fail to get a result.

The above are off the top of my head and represent just a little part of my overall "user-inducing frustration" that pretty much every Desktop Linux flavor thrown at me so far.

I don't know how to best emphasize on this: as a desktop user, I simply loathe having to open terminal and drop to root 50 times a day, when whatever I have to do should involve a right-click and picking a menu entry or a couple checkmarks selected in a configuration GUI window. People eventually start doing everything as root and then they are laughed at for "not being secure". Well, doh. It's the OS pushing that behavior, not the user choosing it deliberately.

I agree that it sucks to have to open a terminal. But I don't mind to have to enter my password to allow my computer to do something. And if anything, it seems that other OSs are going the same way. My work computer requires a password for almost everything.

"Actually, no, that is really annoying, because you end up with a computer that does stuff behind your back, and is using bandwidth/processor power when I need it. I will choose when my computer can have those resources. For me, the way Ubuntu / Linux Mint does its updates is by far superior to any other method I have seen."

1. Using the lowest CPU priority and network QoS ensures you have all the bandwidth/power you need, when you need it.2. I maybe WANT an OS that does some things behind my back. I'm not a

It's true that funky names are ubiquitous in the free software world, and I often wish developers came up with something better. But unhelpful names aren't limited to FOSS. What would your grandmother (if she's familiar with computers, pick another relative:-)) guess Adobe Acrobat does? Or Microsoft Silverlight? Windows? Visual Studio?

Thank you for confirming my GP statements.As a desktop user, I don't have to log a root shell, I don't have to read man sudo's man pages. I need a GUI with point-and-click and embedded help. Because I am a fucking desktop user, yeah, the "idiot" who is referred to as "luser" and has to work on those boring spreadsheets and webapps that the mighty developer doesn't give a fuck about.

With most of my work taking place in web-based applications I struggled to switched to Linux for no compelling reason. Nobody's

Not sure about OS-X but under Windows I can alter that behavior (asking for a password, prompting for an accept) with a drag of a slider.Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\User Accounts - Change User Account Control settings. Click-click-click-drag a slider, OK.

Actually, no, that is really annoying, because you end up with a computer that does stuff behind your back, and is using bandwidth/processor power when I need it.

The CPU power is a non-issue for an application like this.

Windows solved the bandwidth problem by creating BITS, Background Intelligent Transfer Service, that only consumes bandwidth when no other processes are making bandwidth demands. So if you're halfway through a 2-GB patch, and start up Battlefield 4, the patch download will automatically stop

Why on earth would Linux do any of these things? If you want an OS that looks and works like Windows, USE WINDOWS! If you don't like using the terminal, USE WINDOWS (the fact that Windows treats the command line as a red-headed stepchild is not nearly a good enough reason for Linux to stop using such a powerful interface)! Linux does it's own thing, in it's own way, and it has absolutely no need to become more like Windows in order to be useful.

I want an OS that also looks and works like Windows, essentially taking the best of both worlds.The inability to understand the power behind such a concept gives Linux its insignificant desktop market share.

In one, there are two operating systems, that look and act identically.

In the other, there are two operating systems, both of which try, intelligently, to provide the best and most productive user experience.

I want to live in the second world, not the first. I appreciate you want to live in the first, we know you do, there's usually a bunch of you that pop up in every UI experience discussion on Slashdot. You're not uncommon, and there was even a time that GNOME development was d

It's amazing how people just don't get it.Say I build a piece of software (or GUI, or operating system, game, whatever). My aim is to penetrate a market which is dominated by the 800 pounds gorilla, the big-ba-da-boom product which 95% of the market uses. That dominating product has certain features, one of them being a certain functionality the market is used to. My product is faster and more secure and also has some extra functionality, so I know it's better in some ways, and in others is different.

* I want my updates to install as seamlessly as possible, e.g. download and install updates in the background then let me know I need to restart (if that's the case), much like Android does;

Available for years now.

* App store for my favorite flavor, where I could sort by features, not by category;

Done years ago, though the features search could be better.

* Make it absurdly easy to mount an ISO or browse a network/network share.

Done years ago. Put the disk in, file management window pops open.

* Make it easy to search for files and folders. Many times I copied a file or downloaded a file and I had no idea where it was, searching for it yielded no results but manually browsing around eventually found it. Y U NO SEARCH???

It was there, I said before I manually browsed folders until I found it.Maybe it wasn't indexed, I don't know. Fact of the matter was: a file existed on the HDD and the search function couldn't find it.

That's the point, as a standard, Average Joe desktop user, I don't know (I really don't know) and shouldn't care. The OS should ideally detect a new file was created and add it to the index, problem solved.

Add overhead to every single write/create/rename op? I would consider that severe breakage.

You didn't say which distro you were using, but the help for mine says:

Search for Files uses the find, grep, and locate UNIX commands. By default, when performing a basic search Search for Files first uses the locate command, and then uses the slower but more thorough find command.

The case sensitivity of the search depends on your operating system. For example, on Linux, the find, grep, and locate commands support the -i option, so all searches are case-insensitive.

you forgot Git and Gimp. That's the most ridiculous argument I've ever heard... must be what people call "ad nominem" attack

Might be ridiculous to you, but I am comparing to Android application names.Opening my Tools folder, I see Calculator, Clock, ES File Explorer, Flash Alerts, GPS Essentials, My Files, Settings, Speech Synthesis, Speedtest, Translate, Voice Recorder and Wifi Analyzer. Guess what each does?The problem is not the "chosen name". "Gimp" would be fine if it would be called "Gimp Image Edito

A lot of what you're talking about is being done in GNOME. In fact, GNOME tends to get flamed because in order to implement some of those things you have to break cultural norms. Breaking cultural norms will garner a lot of flames as people who like the status quo tend to quite upset even if they are not using GNOME. GNOME for instance is the first project to have visual designers and a culture where FOSS developers actually consult designers to get a pleasing designer. Not
usual for a open source proje

I admit I'm looking at this from a migration perspective: Windows user trying to switch to Linux. It's only normal that I'd wish to have a smooth transition, rather than re-train myself into using all the different shortcuts and automations that make me more proficient.

The reverse is true as well. As a Linux user, you might want the same functionality (from a perception perspective) if you decide to switch or try out Windows-based operating systems. Sadly, Windows is even less configurable (GUI-wise) than Linux.

Certainly: one of the things I'm most used to is focus follows mouse without autoraise. I find it very awkward to operate without it. Most people used to click to focus with autoraise find my setup terribly awkward.

However, you could just as well argue that on Windows, you invariably need to open the registry editor to configure this and that.

WHAT???The last time I had to go and alter the Registry was more then a year ago, when I used a registry-hacking workaround to trick a corporate application into using an older version of JDK. I actually double-clicked a pre-existing.reg file but I'll count it as registry hacking. Before that... I don't even remember. Maybe I edited the registry 5 times in more than 14 years. Ma

You're telling me that one can't change a config file through a GUI interface?Config files are structured well enough to be... hmm, GUI-able, if that makes any sense. Even programatically, by parsing the config file and dynamically building GUI-based forms around the parsed contents.

GUI? A sysadmin is expected to know how to edit text files and use the console.

Have you read this?: "There are so many little things daily that cause the OS to be hard to use for regular people.""regular people""REGULAR PEOPLE"I guess you haven't. Why am I not surprised?

Auto-running executables by accidental click is a very bad idea.No, YOU THINK it's a very bad idea. For a regular user it's expected behavior. If anything, just add a pop-up saying "are you sure you want to execute this script?" but it woul

You're contradicting yourself.If Linux-based OS is for "31337" only, how would Windows fade away? What are 97% of people using computers going to switch to? MacBooks? Something else that hasn't been invented yet?Please, enlighten me.

Linux developers are notoriously terrible at designing user interfaces. For example:
1. The Unity lens
2. GIMP
3. Open/LibreOffice
And those are the "big" applications. When you start looking at the smaller applications its gets even worse. Alot of half-assed, ugly looking applications.
Then there is hardware support, which they like to blame on the hardware vendors, but if you look at the poor quality user interfaces you can see that the vendors are only part of the problem. I'm not saying all Linux de

On GIMP, you don't even need that, single-window mode with panes you can arrange and stuff, a very standard look, has been there for at least two years already.And thank god it is, everything about using GIMP is 10 times more pleasant nowadays. I wouldn't pick anything else for serious spriting. (For traditional drawing I'd rather use Krita or Mypaint, though)

To be fair, you phrased it nicely. But it's still the same old mindset underneath that prevents Linux desktop from getting any traction.

No, it's really not. Familiarity is amazingly important. The thing is I use Linux more than anything else. If I go on a Windows or OSX machine, I'm presenetd with all sorts of weirdnesses and illogical things and things which plain old get in the way.

It's not a question of n00bishness but not working on the systems I work on day-in day-out every day.

So you expect to be able to use a general purpose system that does accounting, astronomy, genomics, etc etc on everything from a modern mainframe to a pocket watch with NO learning whatsoever? Were you born knowing how to use Windows 7 or did you learn it?

That's what he was saying. It's not hard at all but we can't learn it for you. Even if we copied every bit of the clunky Windows interface, we'd just get sued by MS and forced to change it.

So you expect to be able to use a general purpose system that does accounting, astronomy, genomics, etc etc on everything from a modern mainframe to a pocket watch with NO learning whatsoever?

Don't be daft, it isn't the same system, it's (mostly) the same kernel, people aren't running RHEL or SLES on their smartphones. Apple uses the same kernel for their desktop, server, tablet, phone and media player operating systems and those are very intuitive so yes Linux-based products should be be intuitive, because going between Windows and OS X is nowhere near as difficult as going to a desktop Linux distro.

But I personally don't think that's the real issue, people will adapt to using even unintuitive

Considering the amount of pushback I got trying to move 5 outlook express users who were losing data on a monthly basis to thunderbird where no crashes were happening, I believe I can blame the users. Personally I see very little if any difference in the interfaces of those two.

I Honestly cannot see what is so hard about Linux desktop. Significantly, people who first learn to use a computer with a Linux desktop find that the jump to windoes is nearly impossible. Interestingly, when workplaces switch to Linu

Considering the amount of pushback I got trying to move 5 outlook express users who were losing data on a monthly basis to thunderbird where no crashes were happening, I believe I can blame the users.

And did you try to understand why it was difficult? What was it they were attached to? If outlook express crashes while they were typing an email and they then have to revert to an auto-saved draft you can see that not being that much of a big deal.

I Honestly cannot see what is so hard about Linux desktop.

The reason people don't switch is not that it's necessarily that hard, it's that it's not worth it. It's just change for the sake of change but in addition to that you lose application compatibility in exchange for... what?

As for the system, there are people running Debian or Ubuntu on a smartphone.

And did you try to understand why it was difficult? What was it they were attached to? If outlook express crashes while they were typing an email and they then have to revert to an auto-saved draft you can see that not being that much of a big deal.

I did attempt to. Evidently it was that the icons on the buttons had minor stylistic differences and it wasn't called outlook express. And by crash, I mean corrupt the mailstore and not being able to get all of the mails (claimed to be CRITICAL) back.

And keep in mind, that wasn't an attempt to change the whole OS or any of the other software, just the email app.

Larger organizations have saved MILLIONS by switching. Maybe you have an unwanted spare million bux in your pocket, but many don't.

Yes of course some people are but saying it's the same system "on everything from a modern mainframe to a pocket watch" is just nonsense.

Larger organizations have saved MILLIONS by switching. Maybe you have an unwanted spare million bux in your pocket, but many don't.

Very few large organizations have done so and ultimately that's just the argument that it's cheap and just pleasing the beancounters. If somebody like Microsoft (or to a lesser extent, Apple) come in with a cheap deal or something desirable then you find yourself offering nothing, which is precisely what has been happening in the consumer space for nigh on 2 decades. It's not that it's not as good as the commercial offerings, it's that it's not measurably better, it isn't disruptive. Even Microsoft has stum

The problem is, no matter how cheap, unless it is Free, you still get to spend money on license compliance. The very largest organizations need not worry because they likely have a very expensive site license, but anything smaller does not. And license compliance can be quite hard. Even Microsoft can't tell you exactly how many of what licenses you will need (seriously, call them 3 times, give the same description, get three mutually exclusive answers!)

The problem is, no matter how cheap, unless it is Free, you still get to spend money on license compliance.

I don't.

The very largest organizations need not worry because they likely have a very expensive site license, but anything smaller does not.

Smaller ones generally buy their licenses included with their hardware, just like regular consumers do.

If you want other benefits, there are plenty. Consider all the pain now as various organizations now have to either migrate off of XP now or cough up huge sums to maintain support for a few more years. Not a problem with a Free OS.

There is no free OS version that has had 13 years of support and even large corporations are reluctant to maintain an operating system themselves due the huge cost, the alternative for them is to cough up huge sums to companies like RedHat to maintain support, so no real benefit there.

BTW, multiple workspaces are NICE to have.

Yeah I have that in OS X, use it all the time.

Does Windows FINALLY have a compose key?

I don't know.

As for the system portability, I explicitly stated that it includes the userspace software.

Yes, at the pocket watch scale you must make concessions to the limited power of the platform and the limited UI, but the standard cli utilities work just fine.

You can install bash on Windows, but only if you install the rest of Cygwin (basically a Unix userspace ported to Windows).

You can very well be stuck if you use XP. Let's say, one of those nice pre-installed machines craps out. Now, if you want consistancy, you're SOL.

With Linux, since you can mix and match, you can either install the old distro on a well chosen new machine or you can install the latest but keep all of the old userspace in a chroot for that special app that needs the old libraries.

You can install bash on Windows, but only if you install the rest of Cygwin (basically a Unix userspace ported to Windows).

Nope, you can use win-bash.

You can very well be stuck if you use XP. Let's say, one of those nice pre-installed machines craps out. Now, if you want consistancy, you're SOL.

How are you "stuck"?

With Linux, since you can mix and match, you can either install the old distro on a well chosen new machine or you can install the latest but keep all of the old userspace in a chroot for that special app that needs the old libraries.

Which is a nice feature, but of no value to the vast majority of people. That's been proven already.

But to each his own. You are free to pound nails with a rock if you like, but I prefer a hammer or a nailgun for that.

And you can keep you head in the sand just ignoring reality, I'm not quite sure what your analogy is supposed to mean as I use OS X primarily and that has all the same tools as Linux, I can even replace the shell if I want. So it seems you're just very uneducated about what is available.

I think you underestimate the magnitude of user inertia. I suspect as the generation growing up to expect varied interfaces matures, they'll be more open to a Linux desktop.

Changing interfaces is not a big deal, I've already said that. The problem is

I gave many examples of advantages but you don't value them. That's fine, but others do and would switch but for inertia. All those corporations stuck with XP and IE6 probably wish they could make the jump to Win7 and keep IE 6 for their internal craplications. A few years ago, they wished they could compile the latest and greatest IE for XP.

As for OSX, I have a lot less problem with it. It's not quite my cup of tea but it is my next choice after Linux. Of course it's not exactly the year of the OSX desktop

No it's not that I don't value them, it's that the vast majority of people don't value them. They aren't significant or disruptive changes, look at what the iPhone did to the smartphone market, that is what will make people switch. Real significant, tangible benefits are what people are willing to put up with change and incompatibility for.

That's fine, but others do and would switch but for inertia.

There is absolutely no proof of that whatsoever, the only proof is to the contrary: OS X marketshare has grown over the past decade while desktop Linux has not. Windows h

It seems like Chrome OS already won the usability contest and has had significant commercial success. It's funny because Chrome OS is so easy to use and polished that even techies assume it's not linux. Just flip a switch though and you've got a bash shell and you can install an Ubuntu system on top of it.

Here's an example of a guy easily turning these $199 chrome books into ubuntu based coding machines:

As someone who uses Ubuntu as their primary desktop OS both at home and at work, I have to say that usability is the biggest feature holding back Linux desktop.

I keep wondering about this one. Because of work requirements, I started using windows again after a long hiatus, and find it rather cranky (windows 7). It was easier to program the reactions to my marble ball mouse under linux than it was under windows 7 (essentially impossible to get reasonable scroll-wheel emulation). Then there isn't anything rem

In fairness, Microsoft Windows sometimes feels like a great desktop OS where the designers never went back and reviewed their work. They have occasional spurts of activity where Microsoft goes back and fixes things, but that's only between spurts of activity where they add a bunch of nonsense that doesn't work, while breaking things.

I've been using Elementary OS Luna for about a year now. It's just lovely.

It has no grand plans of world-domination or a perfectly converged all-in-one interface to rule them all. It does give me the stability and packages of Ubuntu with excellent desktop usability and elegance.

It offers a consistent, well-thought out interface. It easily supports colour calibration, multiple workspaces and monitors, great keybindings, etc. After using it for a bit, it has become an effortless part of my workflow in a way that Unity failed to.

And that's the old version.

This is news. As someone using Desktop Linux daily, a new release of Elementary OS based on the latest LTS of Ubuntu is what will finally have me upgrading my machines. I have great respect and appreciation for what Cannonical has done for the Linux desktop. I use Ubuntu everywhere I can, but for day-to-day Linux desktop use, I use and recommend Elementary OS.

Try it. If you like simple and elegant interfaces, I think you'll like it.

I want to see it upgrade at least twice in place without crapping on its own drivers before I'll be impressed.

OOTB most of the so called "mainstream" distros look real nice, its the second you have to upgrade them to continue getting security updates that they shit themselves and fall apart. as just an example if you had installed ubuntu at the same time that Windows 7 came out you would have had to install a grand total of 1 service pack and the monthly updates on 7, all of which can be done automatically

"draws a lot of comparisons to Mac OS X" or Draws a lot of cues from OSX?

Drawing a comparison would suggest its different but comparable, and not inspired by. Straight up copying as it is I wouldn't even suggest saying it's drawing cues.

If I wanted OS X I'd run OS X. I'm not sure why Slashdot is bothering to cover a distro whose claim to fame is ripping off somebody elses design. Or at least cover it and act like they're doing something unique.

If I wanted OS X I'd run OS X. I'm not sure why Slashdot is bothering to cover a distro whose claim to fame is ripping off somebody elses design. Or at least cover it and act like they're doing something unique.

I think a lot of people want OSX, but also want to run something that's free (libre & gratis) on commodity hardware. Hence, interest in a Linux distro that draws lots of [whatever] from OSX.

This is a silly argument. Perhaps they don't want to beholden to Apple but would like a nicely designed OS with great apps without having to go through iTunes and what not. We can make this argument with just about anything else if we want. There are plenty of us who want to use free software because it is ethical and responsible.

Actually pretty much anything that will run on a Linux OS will also run on OS X, in fact there is even a nix-style package manager called MacPorts that you can get a lot of that stuff from. The App Store (not sure why you mention iTunes, perhaps you just don't know much about OS X) is in addition to that, you never have to use it.

I bet you'd still find more people running OS X on hackintoshes than you would running Elementary OS.

Drawing a comparison would suggest its different but comparable, and not inspired by. Straight up copying as it is I wouldn't even suggest saying it's drawing cues.

I'm not really sure why people think that Elementary OS is a copy of OS X. Sure, it's similar in the same way that all contemporary smartphones look like an iPhone, but beneath the theme (with a dock, like WindowMaker, XFCE, and countless other WMs have) it behaves very differently - distinctly. Workspaces, for instance, are quite different. There's no integrated top menu like there is in Mac OS or Unity, all apps behave very differently than they would on Mac OS X, etc.

I'm not really sure why people think that Elementary OS is a copy of OS X.

OSX is my everyday desktop. And I looked at the video on the homepage of Elementary OS, and to me it looked every bit like OSX.

No it's not just the Dock. Though the dock is a blatent copy, right down to the bouncing whilst launching.

Going through the vid: The progress spinner si a an OSX copy. There's also the system tray icons top left, they are an OSX copy. In the music app, there is a source-list copy. The file browser is an OSX Finder clone. The delete icon consisting of a white X is black circle with w

That made me laugh! In many ways, I still find PamOS to be a more effecient OS than what's available today. Just think of how fast it was considering it was running on a CPU chunking away at 8-33MHz! That said, you really can't go back.

SNIP

Nah, I'd rather have xfce with some tuning to clean stuff up.

I also love XFCE and still use it on any servers with X11 installed. (Though I miss the days of it looking like CDE.) The last time I tried it in earnest, it didn't handle multi-monitor support very well. Has that improved recently?

In olden times when the entire monitor had a resolution less than that occupied by side-bar advertisements today, the top menu bar made sense. It really did save space over putting the menu repetitively inside every app window.

But... today it is very common to use dual monitors (at minimum) with pretty extreme resolutions. Moving the cursor from the right side of an external monitor to the left side upper corner, often feels like walking across Montana. With real estate to waste

If I wanted OS X I'd run OS X. I'm not sure why Slashdot is bothering to cover a distro whose claim to fame is ripping off somebody elses design. Or at least cover it and act like they're doing something unique.

It draws comparison because of design principals - most notably productivity. So, some things seem similar but it is a different (in a good way) experience from Gnome, KDE, Windows 7, and OSX.

They need to work on their design principals a little harder. Right now it looks like "Just copy MacOSX" Just watching the video on the site about Freya makes me wonder how apple hasn't sent a C&D yet. Mute the audio, show the demo to somebody who doesn't know and ask them what OS it is.

It's not just generic Grey gradient/brushed steel feel. All its missing is the buttons for resize, minimize and close. In the demo they have the iTunes rip off, The File manager that looks identical, and then on top of a

Let's see, the number one most common reason to create a distro is "usability" and we've already got hundreds. Red Hat, Mandrake, Suse, Ubuntu to name a few. None of them became as usable as they claim.

Maybe there's something awfully wrong with that recipe, maybe usability comes as a result of other factors, such as choice, determinism, *nix philosophy or any number of other things, which these distros clearly don't focus on.

What we're trying to move towards where I work is RHEL on the server and making use of Docker. The plan is that we'll put some more user friendly OS on the desktop so our users aren't endlessly frustrated by the desktop being shit and let the developers use Docker to create application stack builds. Once they go through the testing and vetting process we'll just push the containers up to the production RHEL servers. This serves two purposes, the people that actually have to interface with the desktop can

In the US at least, the word "elementary" means "elementary school" 95% of the time, so that's the association I have with the word "elementary". I'm sure I'm not the only one. It doesn't look like it's actually designed for children, so why in the world would they use that name. Might as well call it Kindergarten OS or Playskool OS.

You didn't use retard as a verb as it was clearly defined in your little snippet. You used it as a noun, and as a noun it has a different meaning the meaning you're getting beaten up for. Accept gracefully, and move on.

If their website's design [elementaryos.org] is anything like their OS design, count me out. I'm not sure how that's supposed to be usable and elegant.

To see a sample screenshot of the desktop, I click on a tiny thumbnail of a seashell? Or a pink feathery-looking thing? Why are those icons the only way to see screenshots of the thing? And the majority of the text on the page is nothing more than flowery text explaining that it's open-source. Where's any actual description of what makes it different from other distributions?

Luna has been engineered from the ground up to be light on its toes. It starts up quickly, logs in instantly, and uses the bare minimum of resources so that your apps enjoy a speed boost as well. And with Luna, you get the same Linux foundation chosen for the worldâ(TM)s fastest supercomputers.

is a flat-out lie, considering it's using the Linux kernel. Unless they're claiming they had an engineer re-examine every line of code in the Linux kernel "from the ground up".

thats funny, because i went to their site and could not find any screenshots of this OS claiming to be very well designed. and then you tell me about the seashell picture, which they do not indicate will lead to a screenshot.

thats funny, because i went to their site and could not find any screenshots of this OS claiming to be very well designed. and then you tell me about the seashell picture, which they do not indicate will lead to a screenshot.